Students design, create earth science models for classrooms

Four SUNY Oneonta students are involved in a year-long project with the goal of shaping the future of science education by designing and creating their own instructional models for use in classrooms.

The project, titled "Authentic Research Experiences for Earth Science Education Majors," gives pre-service Earth Science teachers the chance to design and build their own models of particularly complex or abstract Earth processes and concepts, according to project leaders Dr. James Ebert of the Earth & Atmospheric Sciences Department and Dr. Paul Bischoff of the Secondary Education Department.

Participating students, who were selected from a pool of applicants, spent four weeks in the spring designing and building the models and will work throughout the year to tweak and perfect them. Four of the students were from SUNY Oneonta, and two were from other SUNY schools.

The students were given a stipend of $2,500 for their work. Six more students will participate next year, with six more after that.